The Skinny on SafeHome.Org’s Statistical Spin that Salisbury is Among N.C. Safe Cities

Posted on March 10, 2018

RFP Staff

♦ This morning a friend of ours sent us an article appearing in the local print newspaper concerning the overwhelming statistical support based on the FBI UCR Crime reports for Salisbury, N.C. for being a dangerous city. There’s no doubt that Salisbury is an extremely dangerous city any hour of the day with numerous killings, shootings, knifings, armed robberies, home invasions, and folks being assaulted by rocks and knuckle dusters.

In the print article a police spin spokeperson mentioned the SafeHomes.org’s claim that Salisbury, N.C. made their Safe Cities list. We saw the same safe cities list previously when the Rowan Chamber of Commerce sent it out and numerous folks in beleaguered Salisbury angrily passed us the list. There are still people remaining in Salisbury and Rowan County who do not suffer from a lack of critical reasoning skills and statistical savvy. They experience directly what is happening in Salisbury and they note how statistics are fudged and how various parts of the city suffer from no shows or very late responses on crime calls.

The actual Safehome.org data from the FBI Uniform Crime Report appears accurate. The challenge is just about all of the N.C. cities with populations of 28,000 and above made the list. If we look at the top of the list these cities are safe. No one could argue with Cary and Apex. But the cities appearing toward the bottom of the list like Salisbury, Goldsboro, Durham, and Charlotte are far from safe cities. What Safehome.org has done is slap the label “safe” on their list.

Now take the same safe cities list and reverse its order. Slap the “dangerous cities” label on it. Well that wouldn’t be true either because Apex and Cary are safe places with little crime.

SafeHome.org has used free marketing device which will be employed by city publicity folks and police spokespersons in extremely dangerous cities like Salisbury to refute the dangerousness of their cities. What’s wrong about this kind of spin doctoring and “positive smokescreening” it can lull people into a false sense of safety in an area where someone could be severely wounded, robbed, or even wind up in a morgue refrigerator.

How the Salisbury Police and Other Police Departments Alter the FBI Crime Statistics Under Pressure to Make Their Municipalities Look Good: